Bring back Prime - Terrible US Open Coverage

[Ant11]

I thought the whole point of streaming was that you could watch what you wanted when you wanted. Prime costs so much less and was far superior for tennis, plus you get films, TV and parcel delivery for 75% less than a sports subscription. I had been thinking of coming back to Sky but not now. Seems they are stuck in the satellite subscription era. 

[Lochness7]

I have sky broadband/mobile and now tv/boost I can’t seem to get sky sports to watch us open.

[RoyB]

@Lochness7 

On Now, just navigate to a Sports programme of your choice and select it to start watching it.

The nice Now system will relieve your Now account of a seemingly arbitrary sum of money between £19.99 and £34.99, and let you straight in.

(Though if this doesn’t happen, please describe what does).

[djvh]

if you're not on a HDMI-into-TV device of their choosing, you get a black screen; they can't even be bothered to provide an error message saying unsupported device, just a black screen.

[CheatedbyNow]

Welcome to the club 😞

[RoyB]

This is a serious wake-up call for Sky and Now, though.

If they can’t demonstrate, in good time before the US Open reconsiders the rights for next year, that every device that they support can deliver bonus streams, and that they can deliver On Demand replays of everything within an hour (and better, within half an hour) then I hope the US Open has a non-performance clause in the current agreement that they can invoke to revoke it, and put the rights up for grabs again.

And Now will hopefully be considering a Tennis-only Sports package, so tennis fans get value for money, instead of involuntarily helping to subsidise Porsches for every Premier League football player.

[SweetBlitz]

This is a serious wake-up call for Sky and Now, though.

@RoyB I don’t think it is.  This happened before with the tennis where matches were suddenly abandoned in the fifth set to go to live Netball coverage.  Sky will just do what they want to do.  They have paid handsomely for the rights and they can show what they like.  I doubt there would be clauses that they have replays of all games or even a percentage of them.

And Now will hopefully be considering a Tennis-only Sports package

They have this type of thing with full blown Sky but the difference is minimal (£18/month vs. £22/month).  Tennis is on Action and Arena, so the £18/month option is available as the two are counted as one channel. Besides there was a £15/month offer on the whole she-bang recently.  Tennis fans should read all the F1 posts of yesteryear.  They made no difference to the Now TV offering.

I haven’t been affected by the paucity of the Now coverage as I have Virgin and can record through the night.  I have previously found the picture quality much better on Now Sports channels with Boost  compared to Amazon which seemed to have an odd frame rate.  Similar with Rugby and Football on Amazon.

I do feel for tennis fans who have been given a lesser service as a result of Sky purchasing the rights and I am glad that GAAGO & BBC now have GAA rights in UK for much the same reason.  To get anything comparable to Prime, will most likely need a fully fledged Sky/Cable package which is what Sky really want to sell.  Now is bare bones and predominately selling to those who refuse to have Sky or Cable.  I accept Now’s limitations and find it works well if you watch sport live as it happens, however I switched to Sky Sports with Virgin as it costs me £22/month until end of the year and gives me the flexibility to record and pause and all the good things that Now doesn’t provide.

[KatyC]

SCREW Now TV for the appalling "offering" on laptop. NO men's tennis in night session on my laptop. It's a monopoly and/or dictatorship. FURIOUS that I have to spend GBP 30 when Amazon coverage was SO good before.

[Jastobsus]

Agree.  I have experienced problems every evening that I am trying to look at the matches.  Men's semi finals today and absolute crap service from Sky/Now TV.  Keeps cutting out with an error message so I cannot watch the matches in its entirety.  Also they are charging GBP26  and when one compares what one paid for viewing on Amazon and the entire coverage, Replays, highlights etc and this is not available on Now TV.  I think that we should all be refunded.  I will certainly be cancelling my subscription after the Men's Finals that is if I am able to view it at all.  Sky/Now are coming across as scammers with over charging for such poor service.

[Popeye13]

Im surprised at how obvious the drop in quality is. I know Sky have been shaving off costs here and there where they can and without it being obvious but i think the time for 'under-the-radar' has well and truly gone, because the whole US Open on Sky Sports looks and feels rather adhoc and not a well executed plan delivering quality at its core.

The extra streams are frankly an appalling quality; a very low bitrate 720p, at 25fps is one hell of a drop from the full 1080p 50fps quality you got as a base minimum from Prime Video. Its like going from DVD back to VHS. Its way too obvious how bad the quality is.

I don't for a moment believe or accept that Sky don't have capacity to encode and deliver the additional streams in 1080p50, they're one of the biggest broadcasters in Europe, its just not an excuse i'll buy.

Sky have sold this as their big return to Tennis - Its a grim reality if this is the best they are willing to go. Poor quality, an abysmally slow ondemand availability and shoddy quality - oh dear!

[SweetBlitz]

I don't for a moment believe or accept that Sky don't have capacity to encode and deliver the additional streams in 1080p50, they're one of the biggest broadcasters in Europe, its just not an excuse i'll buy.

FWIW on cable Sky Tennis 1 - Tennis 16 all claim to be HD, but ain’t necessarily so. Some of them a jerky and unwatchable. Some don’t have commentary. I suspect Sky and Virgin just take the feed provided by US broadcasters. And transpose the 60/30 fps to 50fps or 25 fps as appropriate.  They are probably concentrating their efforts on the two broadcast channels.